Moondust
by Corona Austrina
Summary: It starts coming back to him in random flashes and nightmares. He remembers pain. The smell of smoke. Gunshots and explosions. And a woman smiling up at him, her red hair blowing in the wind. A story of how two broken souls find love, lose it, and begin again.
1. Prologue

A man is lying, face down, on the icy planes of Northern Russia. His shoulder length black hair is matted, and the black uniform he's wearing is stained red in places. He's dying- the life seeping out of him slowly along with his blood- and he knows it. As he drifts in and out of consciousness he tries in vain to grasp the shards of memories that are floating around in the back of his head.

 _An explosion. Fire. The rancid smell of gas. Screams of terrified people, echoing in his ear._

 _The feeling of a gun in his hand- one of absolute control and power, and the indifference in which he pulls the trigger, ending the life of a man whose face he doesn't recognize._

 _A woman, smiling at him from beneath her lashes. Her red hair is striking against her green irises and it's the single most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The feeling of her leather suit on his hands, and the roar of blood that pumps through his veins, it_ _'_ _s all dizzying and terrifying at the same time, and he's at a complete loss at what to make of it._

 _Pain. Physical pain that has gone too far and is threatening to break his sanity along with his body. He grits his teeth and tries to defend his mind, to keep it from crumbling down, but all he can do is thrash against the binds and yell blindly-_

 _The smell of sweat and blood and metal- three things that he's familiar with. He looks around him and realizes with a start that he's the only man alive in this room, standing atop tens of burnt and charred bodies._

 _A sensation of warmth and softness on his palm. He's bending down and putting the lightest bit of pressure possible to the white expanse of a woman's abdomen. "Can you feel it?" she whispers, and he starts, because something just kicked against his hand. Unknown feelings, feelings he can't name spread through his chest and he nods silently._

 _A man wearing glasses and a white lab coat is standing in front of him. '- done a great job. You've shaped the history of men with your hands, and should be proud for the all the accomplishments you've made.'_

 _The terrifying feeling of losing control of his mind and body. Of forgetting everything, losing himself, losing_ _her_ _, and- everything is dark._

 _Tears. Shouting. Regret. Shame. Anger._

 _"_ _You told me you'd come back! You said you'd come back for us!" The shout rings clear and loud in his eardrums, and the pain_ _it causes_ _feels like someone stabbed a knife in his sternum._

His eyes snap open, and for a moment everything is clear. He has to get up. He has to move. He has to-. But the hole in his chest throbs dully and he realizes that he won't be going anywhere. His feeble attempts at movement result in his fingers and feet twitching slightly.

Somewhere a bird is crying, which can't be right, because the icy planes are devoid of any living creature.

Perhaps it's all in his head.

A cough racks its way up his body, and he ends up spraying droplets of blood on the snow before his face. He can't feel the cold anymore, and the pain that had ripped through his body with vicious brutality just seconds before are nulling into a dull ache.

He thinks of the woman with the red hair and desperately wishes he could see her again, if only to remember what she meant to him. He feels regret and guilt, and can't tell why. He tries fruitlessly to grasp onto the fragments of his memory, but they fade away, clouding over and scattering like sand blowing in the wind.

Snow gathers around him, swirling in particles and resting upon his hair and clothes. Time has passed, but he doesn't know how much. He wonders idly how much time it takes for a man to die.

The snow stops. The wind halts its howling. The sun is coming up, bright and glorious and unforgiving. His metal arm, twisted at the elbow joint in an awkward angle, glints, reflecting a ray of sun. The man blinks blearily, sensing the darkness creeping into his vision and accepting it with a sort of sick relief. He smiles, somehow glad- he can finally be at peace.

His vision is blurry, and everything is fading, and he can hear waves crashing along the shoreline and see the red headed woman laughing brightly at something he said and-

Darkness plunges him down under.


	2. The Phonecall

The chilling scent of disinfectant stung Natasha's nose with a maliciousness she had become accustomed to these past weeks, almost the moment she opened the door to the lab. She nodded her head as a casual greeting to her co-workers and made her way to her table, which she had been sharing with Shanon, a nice, blond girl, ever since they'd been assigned to the same bacterial project.

"Morning, Carrie. You look a bit worn down today, want some coffee?", offered Shanon.

"No thanks, I've had one on my way down here", she lied smoothly, tying back her straight black hair- dyed for this mission- into a pony tail.

"So, we just got the lab reports from the fellows at the A.T.E. department, and the results say that we were right all along! Those bacteria we discovered doesn't simply have the capacity to spread through physical contact, but can also be liquidated into a form of gas, and is perfectly capable of using air a channel of propagation. Of course, the potency becomes much less effective in that case, but I'm sure we can make a formula so that the liquidation process doesn't mess with the density in any way."

Shanon's face was pink with excitement, nearly glowing from the prospect of fulfilling her dream; to make an actual notable scientific discovery and to be recognized in the academic world at last – a dream all scientists seemed to share. Natasha thought wryly whether this bundle of blind intellect and hope would still be enthusiastic about her work when she realized it was probably going to be used for mass genocide in disputed territory. She probably would be. Most of the scientists she'd met had had startlingly blank slates when it came to morality, no doubt blinded by their need to _discover_.

A small part of her, the part that had influenced her to take Hawkeye's hand all those years ago, wanted to rip the report from the foolish blonde's hands and slap the sense into her. But she was on a mission, and since she was a pro, she simply smiled, filling in the role of Carrie Abbigton, the 28 year old bio chemist with a major in bacterial infection.

"Then we'd better start working, right? I'll go ask Brenner if he's got anything on his side of the research, and-"

The buzz of her cell stopped her mid-sentence. She never brought her phone to the lab, in case it disrupted her work, so that meant someone was contacting her _other phone._ Her brow furrowed. Her informant knew never to interrupt her working hours, and they contacted at chosen times on chosen days, never irregularly, and certainly never without notice.

"Sorry, Shannon, I've got a call, and it's urgent. I'll get back to you in a bit, ok?", ignoring Shannon's string of protests, she strode briskly out of the lab and turned down a corridor she knew would be free of any eavesdroppers.

The buzzing had halted and started again by that time, and when Natasha brought the phone to her ears she could feel her stomach churning with apprehension.

"Hello?"

The phone was silent for a moment and then…

"Hi, Nat. It's been a long time.

The diner was packed with people; couples, families, children, all chattering happily, blessedly wrapped in their little bubbles of oblivion. Natasha watched them with a sort of detached dread growing in her stomach while she sipped at her coffee. Underneath her façade of serenity, a mild form of chaos was churning- apprehension, fear, unanswered questions… all of them mixed into one formidable ball of nervousness.

Just as she drained the last drops from her mug, the bell chimed and two men entered. Both were wearing baseball caps and sporting indistinctive, lumpy jackets. Their feeble attempts at disguise didn't fool Natasha for even a second, and she watched them discreetly from the corners of her eyes as they looked around the diner, clearly searching for someone, if not her.

The taller, broader one seemed to have noticed her, and they started making their way towards her booth, weaving through the bustle of waitresses and newcome diners. Natasha's eyes never left the pair, even as she fingered her gun under the table with great care.

'I'm already aware of your undercover assignment at JBR, and your location. I've been close by for a few days, waiting for the right time to contact you. Meet me at a diner closest to the building. Be there as soon as you can.'

The words spoken urgently over phone earlier seemed to echo in her skull as the two men approached her. The tall one had brown hair and brown eyes, with a slight beard to match, and the smaller looked like any other Hispanic youth she had seen milling around London. She recognized neither of them, and she tightened her grip on the gun, ready to fire at any moment.

They had reached her table, and were staring down at her. Like the spy she was, she observed them; the grim line of their lips, the tense way they held themselves, the rush of emotions that flitted through their eyes – everything was both a clue and a riddle.

After a moment of strained silence, she spoke.

"Sorry, but you two gentlemen aren't the person I've made my appointment with. May I ask what your business is", she asked, smiling sweetly.

The two men shared a look, turned back to face her, and the smaller one spoke, with an uncannily familiar smirk.

"I think I liked your hair better red, _Carrie._ Black doesn't suit you at all, at least in the hair department."

Natasha tried all she could to mask her surprise, but she still couldn't help the slight widening of her eyes. She clenched and unclenched her fists repeatedly in an attempt to calm herself down, but failed miserably, because the voice that just spoke unmistakably belonged to someone, a man, she knew.

It was Tony Stark.

Natasha closed her eyes for a second in an attempt to process what had just happened, and words flashed beneath her eyelids – _the Sokovia accords, Helmut, betrayal,_ _ **division**_ _._ The words weighed her down, sent a throbbing ache in her heart, but she didn't have time for either sentiment or remembrance. As her eyes snapped open to meet the greyish ones of the person suit concealing Tony, Natasha could almost feel the emotional part of her shutting down and leaving room only for the Black Widow, cool-headed and ruthless.

Her eyes raked over the two men standing before her, calculating and analyzing every detail that came to her. It hadn't been Tony that had contacted her, and yet here he stood, before her. In Natasha's world coincidences didn't happen; every single thing was a part of an intricately designed web, signs and forewarnings of what was to come.

"Look, I'd like to explain everything to you right here, right now, I really do. But we have to be careful about what we say here. This place isn't secure in the least and anyone, anything, could be listening. So I advise that you take a leap of faith for once and follow us to a safer location", said the Hispanic man - _Tony_ , she mentally corrected – interrupting her thoughts.

The taller man seemed to agree with him, shifting from side to side and looking around nervously, like they were being watched. Ignoring Tony, Natasha narrowed her eyes at the man. There was something familiar about him, in the way he held himself and in the lines of his broad shoulders, and it was niggling at her nerves. The man turned his gaze towards her and their eyes met, and though brown, the firm kindness in his irises was something that was she was so accustomed to that everything seemed to fall into place.

This man was Steve. Steve Rodgers.

This new discovery brought along almost as many questions as it answered. _What were Tony and Steve doing together? What was it that made both of them so nervous? Why would these two contact her in the first place?_ The questions swam through her brain and her eyes flicked constantly between the two familiar men with unfamiliar faces. A hundred different theories sprang to her mind, all of them either nonsensical or foreboding, and she could feel her own body tense instinctively, her muscles coiled like a spring ready to lash out.

And then Steve spoke, his voice laced with the usual level-headedness she knew so well and the slight tremor that was new.

"Nat, I know it's hard for you to trust either of us, and that you have a lot of questions. But this isn't the time or the place to do it. So, please, Nat…"

His voice trembled and broke, and a terrible sort of fear gripped at her. The Steve she had known wasn't like this. He wasn't terrified and unsure of himself like he was now, he was headstrong and reliable, always someone she could put her faith on.

"We need your help", he said, and his voice broke.

And so Natasha Romanoff nodded mutely, slowly tucked the gun back into the waistband of her jeans, put ten dollars under her coffee mug, and followed the two men out of the diner, into the unknown.

4


End file.
